His house was empty.
Percival Graves, newly released from MACUSA headquarters, found to be safe, sane and himself, looked around his living room and tried to brush away the panic in his chest. There should have been a second coat on the coat rack, a second pair of shoes tucked in the closet. There should have been signs of life in his small house, signs of a second person, but there was nothing.
He stepped cautiously into the room, his fingers curled around the wand hidden in his pocket.
After Grindelwald had taken him captive, held him for over a year to keep using his hair for the illegal polyjuice potion that the wizard had set up, Percival went nowhere unless he had his wand at his fingertips. He used to keep it in his left sleeve, held in place by loops that he'd had tailored in.
Even that felt too far away, these days.
After all, Grindelwald had managed to capture him with it in that position. He hadn't been able to draw it in time, couldn't defend himself against the wandless magic the other wizard had launched at him.
But his house was empty.
There should have been signs of life, signs of the man he had come to love. No-Maj and wizarding interaction laws be damned, there should have been signs of him. It looked like he had simply vanished.
Maybe, Percival thought as he set his bag inside the hall closet and swallowed nervously, maybe I made him up inside my head.
"A good story in the darkness," he whispered.
Grindelwald had kept him prisoner for a year and a half. Maybe Daniel Razner, a reporter for the local newspaper, had never existed. Maybe he had made him up to try and keep himself sane in his dreams.
Percival took care to hang his coat up, smoothing out the wrinkles he saw in the fabric. It was plausible, he thought. MACUSA keeping him as an employee and not finding out about the no-maj he was sleeping with?
It wasn't likely. They had wizards trained specifically to monitor wizardkind to make sure things like that didn't happen.
What would it say about those men if he had actually managed to keep something like that a secret?
Laughing quietly, Percival wandered into the kitchen, waving his wand and watching as the kettle filled itself and settled on the stove. Another wave of his wand and the stove lit, a small spot of light in what felt almost like a tomb to him now. All too soon it whistled and he pushed away from the wall he had settled against, reaching for the mug he kept in the cupboard. Next to it sat the tea he preferred and next to that-
That wasn't his tea.
Percival pulled the tin out of the cupboard, frowning at it. He preferred the black and green teas. The orange pekoe had always tasted wrong to him, something about it reminding him of a time of sickness and unhappiness.
He could feel the smile pulling at his lips as he studied the label of the tin, running his thumb over it. After a moment of hesitation, he pulled it open and sniffed it cautiously. Definitely not his tea. If he had really made Daniel up in his head then he had gone far to keep up the illusion. To buy an entire pound of tea, a tin that would sit uselessly in his cupboard...Percival had never been a frivolous spender, not even when it came to things he liked.
And he liked Daniel.
The man he remembered was almost of his age, streaks of gray in his hair making him look dignified and handsome. His fingers were long and ink-stained, a pen constantly in his pocket or tucked behind his ear. Percival had compared it to a wand, once, after Daniel had found out about magic being real.
He could remember that night like it had just happened.
The air had been cold and he had been warm, a warmth in his belly that was made stronger by the kisses he had exchanged with the man next to him. Daniel'd had a few drinks and he'd had a few drinks and they were both warm and excited, their hands slipping between layers to feel the curve of a hip or the twist of a muscle as they pressed themselves into a wall and just stood there and felt each other.
The only trouble, he thought as he shoved his nose further into the tea, were the policemen who roamed the streets trying to find speakeasies and other law breaking things.
There had been a shout and then Percival had turned, on instinct, and obliviated the man.
Behind him, Daniel had gone stiff as a board and when Percival had turned back around to meet his eyes, the man had gone on to staring at his wand. Eyes wide, almost too dark to be normal, Daniel had licked his lips and met Percival's stare. "Are...You gonna explain that?" he'd asked softly, his voice somewhat hoarse but his hand never leaving Percival's elbow. "Because that was fantastic."
"There's some things I need to explain," Percival had whispered back. "And I've been putting them off because I don't think you'll like hearing them."
Here he was in his kitchen with his nose in a tin of tea and tears sliding down his face.
Slamming the tin down on the counter, Percival set to making his own tea, ignoring the pekoe that didn't belong to him. He wanted to remember if the man in his memories was real, not make himself cry until he was useless.
Finally, the tea was steeping and he settled at the table, pressing his hands over his mouth and focusing on the teapot.
The boy.
He nearly stood and ran for the door when he remembered. The boy. Credence Barebone. A young man under the awful thumb of his adoptive mother, a woman who beat him. Credence had been in the street when Percival had met him the first time, the poor boy's hands bleeding and sore and Percival had taken pity on him. There had been an attack and the boy had been too near to it and-
What if Grindelwald had come after him?
A guilty twist in his gut made Percival want to be sick. He had vanished and Credence was left to the mercy of the man who had taken his place for over a year.
He remembered something else, something that...
The memory erasing rain.
The no-majs had seen too much, destruction rampant and half of New York destroyed. The wizard they talked about, a British one, had come in with a strange creature and managed to Obliviate all of the no-maj who had seen things they shouldn't have.
Percival closed his eyes slowly.
Daniel was a no-maj.
All it would have taken was one single drop and Daniel was a reporter, first on the scene of any news story he could find. If half of New York had fallen to pieces under an attack like he had been told then Daniel would have been erased too. Likely one of the first.
He let his forehead drop to the surface of the table, his hands covering the back of his neck, and he weeped.